Book Review: The Broken Elf King

Title: The Broken Elf King
Author: Leia Stone
Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Magic, Fiction

What It’s about:

She gets brought by Slave traders to Archmere—the elven city and specifically to the Castle.  Kailani has been ripped from her home and everything she’s ever known all because she borrowed five gold coins she knew she could not afford to pay back in order to get medicine for her aunt—her only parental figure since her human mother died in childbirth and her elven father was killed in Night Fall, where she lives.. As a result, she has to give up her dream of finishing university to become a doctor.  At the castle, Kailani attempts to ask the woman in charge, Mrs. Tirth, if she could do something with medicine and healing, but the woman tells her that she needs hired help for the kitchen.  The slave trader tries to get frisky with her, and Kailani breaks his nose, then knees him in the crotch, which causes her to be taken by the BowMen—an elite guard—and deposited in a room with a hooded figure who reveals himself to be none other than King Raife Lightstone.  He offers her the job of his personal assistant, and has her pass a test in 3 different languages. When she does, he tells her that her work will be with him for five years before she’s free. She also has to take an oath to keep him safe.

The next day, Kailani begins her job by tasting Raife’s food, and then eats with him, which is where she sees that he is still traumatized by the loss of his family to poison to the point that it’s very hard for him to eat.  She attends all of the meetings with him and at the council meeting, she stands up to the councillors. Then they have to have a meeting with the moms of potential women that Raife could marry as the council want him to be engaged within a week, married within a month, and producing an heir within a year or else he will be dethroned.  Before the meeting, she asks him what he likes to do, and what he is looking for in a woman, jotting down what he tells her.  Throughout the meeting and the conversation with the mothers of the women, Kailani takes notes on who could be a match for Raife based on what he had told her.  At some point, Raife has to rush to the hospital to help save a six year old girl who continually has abdominal internal bleeding with no cause. 

On her second day, Lani figures out what exactly the six year old girl has been eating that has been giving her abdominal, internal bleeding—she shows it to Raife, and the two of them ride out to the farm where the family has patches of blackberries. Sure enough, as Lani had predicted, they find the culprit—a plant that looks like blackberries but they are poisonous, which means that the family will have to destroy their patch and their drinks. The farmers are grateful but also embarrassed that they didn’t realize it for so long.  Raife is also absolutely grateful to Lani for what she has done, that he takes her to the healing caverns where he can heal—no one else can heal him except the caverns, and Kailani loves them. 

Time goes on and Lani gets called down to taste the dinner of one of the girlfriends that Raife may choose from, because she really doesn’t want to eat anything and doesn’t know why Raife gets his food tasted but she doesn’t.  Lani makes a show of tasting the food as her request was very rude, and Lani doesn’t typically disturb Raife’s food.  Later that night, raise slips her a note that the lady is a no.  He does this for the next four dates, and for the fifth one, he asks Lani to join him. She tastes the food before she brings the couple the plates, and Raife tells Lottie, the date, that Kailani is his Personal Assistant, who is also important to him.  Suddenly, Kailani feels ill, and she knocks the cutlery out of both of their hands, screaming poison.  Raife jumps into action, saving Kailani at the expense of his own life, but Kailani refuses to let him die.  Instead, she starts chest compressions and breathes into him with a purple glow, thereby saving him.  Raife is in wide-eyed shock as a portion of her hair turns white.  

At the next council meeting, Lani covers for Raife, saying that they have a shortlist, and then tells Raife her three ideas.  Raife chooses option number three, a fake marriage with a trusted friend, and he chooses Lani.  She agrees, and after the engagement, Lani visits him at the hospital, where he’s trying to save the life of a young child that got impaled and she goes in and delivers a purple breath, even while Raife screams at her not to.  They later get into an argument over it, and he reveals that there have been rumors of someone Blessed with Life—that she can restore people back to life, but each time she does, her hair goes white until eventually she dies.  Later that night, Raife comes to her drunk and they kiss for the first time.  Raife pretends he doesn’t remember the kiss. 

Autumn, Lani’s neighbor from home shows up and gives her updates on her aunt. Autumn has a sister who is married to an elf and she sneaks into Archmere to visit them.  She gives Lani a map of the route over chocolate wine, which makes humans drunk and makes them forget what happened while they were drunk.  It so happens that Lani is very drunk when Raife returns from his two week skirmish with the Nightfall Queen, and he continues to reject her when she makes advances on  him, telling her that the wines effects on humans is that they lose their memories.  

Eventually, they get married, and the next day, Lani and Rife go with some of his Bow Men and their wives to a boat competition, one boat breaks off in a different direction than all the others, and attacks them.  Raife and one of the wives are hurt with arrows, and raise heals the wife.  He begins dying and Lani uses 2 kisses on him saving his life, but the tent had blown away and people could see what she was doing.  Lani next wakes up at a cabin with a Healer, and her hair is nearly white.  The healer tells her that Raife had hidden her here because people have been lining up at the gate with their loved ones to ask her to revive them.  He was going to announce that she’s dead, and she’ll have to live in the Cabin forever.  Lani dyes her hair and after putting the healer to sleep, she escapes, sleeping in the tree.  The next morning, she talks to some of the villagers and finds her way to the home of a couple—the husband was going in the direction that she wants to go in, in order to get her aunt.  The man recognizes her and the couple does not care that Lani may die, they are so stricken in grief that they would do anything to get their daughter back.  The man drags Lani out to the one month old graves, and starts digging up the grave when Raife and his Bow Men show up.  Lani and Raife argue and then he tells Cahal to take her to the castle, with the promise that he will not do anything to the family for trying to revive their little one.  

Raife and Lani ultimately go to see Lucien Thorn, the Winter King of the Fae in Thorngate, and the two men fight, but Lucien doesn’t kill Raife as he had promised years ago because of Lani.  Instead, he tells Raife to get the fuck out and if Raife wants his help, to bring Drae.  Lani and Raife leave the Far Kingdom and ride for her aunt, using the map drawn by Autumn to get to her.  Once they pick her up, they go a different route through town around an industrial complex, where they hear a scream.  They watch as the elf wakes up and horrifyingly realizes that she can’t use her powers.  Raife, in anger and calculation, kills all the workers with his bow and they take the girls with them though she clings to Lani once she realizes that Lani is an empath.  By the time they are nearly at the end of the route and are near Archmere, Lani’s thoughts get very dark because of the girl, and Raife has to pull her back from the brink, by kissing her the way he did when he kissed her when he was drunk. 

It turned out that Lani’s aunt had a tumor and Raife works to diminish it size before removing it completely.  As the healing happens, Lani hangs out with her aunt, who in turn tells Lani that Raife does love her, no matter what else Lani may think. Her aunt adds that sometimes men need to feel like they are about to lose the girl in order to admit the truth, so Lani musters up the courage to tell Raife that she wants to take a lover.  Raife doesn’t react, and falls asleep on the couch but the next day he leaves her a note that he values their friendship and that he’s told her that he doesn’t want her to fall in love with him, so he accepts her desire to take a lover. 

Raife rides to see Drae and to tell him about the Nightfall Queen’s power-removing contraption, but this was after much convincing from Kailani that he should go because he was waiting for retaliation from the Queen that never really came.  It comes once he’s gone, and Lani leads the charge, strategically putting Bow Men and using wine and liquor to set the ground on fire.  One of the councilmen hides, but the other three decide to help her.  During the battle, only twelve people pertain, including Haig, one of the oldest councilmen.  He dies defending Lani, who had just discovered that she can also take life—she just breathed white breaths out of the Queen’s mouth, and saw her own hair turn back to brown. Lani offers to save Haig, but he tells her that it is an honor to die protecting her.  Raife returns home and kicks out the remaining two councilmen to speak to Lani, who at first thinks he’s going to yell at her for riding into Battle.  Instead, Raife is proud of her and admits that he loves her; that she’s his family.  They end up having sex. 

The next morning, Raife is called away from bed because Drae had shown up.  He thinks to himself that Lani fascinated him from day one when she fought back against the slave trader, but he admits that he’s known he has been in love with her since the day he found her drunk on elven chocolate wine.  He meets draw and is surprised to see that Drae brought some of his army.  Drae tells him that he’s shown up earlier than agreed because he’s heard that the Nightfall bitch attacked Raife and he saw the carnage on the way in.  He tells Raife that it’s time to go see Lucien. 

My Thoughts: Once again, I really liked this story–for a short 3 hour read–this was just so much fun and entertainment to get through. It’s definitely interesting to see how different the Kings are so far–Raife is way different than Drae, because he doesn’t fall in love with Kailani from the beginning, but rather towards the middle of the book. Drae had loved Arwen from the first moment he saw her in Cinder Village but he couldn’t have her because of old archaic beliefs. Raife on the other hand is not letting himself fall for Kailani because of his loss–he is afraid of losing another person he loves to the nightfall queen. Ultimately this series has just gotten a lot more interesting, so I can’t wait to keep reading.